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BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - the Hundredth Day - and Open Thread
The Oil Drum ^ | July 29, 2010 - 10:25am | Heading Out

Posted on 07/29/2010 7:56:35 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

Admiral Allen held a press conference in the Gulf region (rather than recent ones held in Washington), in which he noted that the news of the rapid disappearance of the oil already emitted by the Deepwater well is raising questions as to how long to retain the different parts of the fleet assembled to deal with it. Well pressure continues to slowly build, and there are no signs that the well integrity has been breached. The problem of the skimmer fleet, and the distributed lengths of boom are non-trivial. Should a hurricane appear then the oil-contaminated boom segments can become polluting sources themselves if they are carried inland. And so they must be collected, cleaned and stored, if there is no longer a need. (Or if they are too contaminated they may need to be disposed of as hazardous waste).

The Admiral also discussed the continuing developments with both the top static kill, (waiting on the cementing of the relief well) and the progress of the relief well itself. The packer sealing the well has been released and recovered, and the well is now being cleaned, before operations restart.

(Excerpt) Read more at theoildrum.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; News/Current Events; US: Louisiana
KEYWORDS: bp; deephorz; deepwaterhorizon; energy; offshore; oil; oilspill
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1 posted on 07/29/2010 7:56:38 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Dumping hundreds of thousands(millions) of gallons of dispersant has turned the clean-up into a three dimensional impossibility.
2 posted on 07/29/2010 8:02:28 PM PDT by allmost
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To: justa-hairyape; Marine_Uncle
Seen this?:

This morning about 2am,

3 posted on 07/29/2010 8:03:19 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
"and the well is now being cleaned, before operations restart."

That means circulating mud through the DP, set just below where the casing is to be run. "Circulating the well".

4 posted on 07/29/2010 8:05:21 PM PDT by Deaf Smith
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Meanwhile...according to the lead story today in USA TODAY...the oil skimmer ships are having a hard time finding any oil to skim....LMAO


5 posted on 07/29/2010 8:24:25 PM PDT by northwinds
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To: allmost

Do you smoke it or take it in the arm? Or are you a DU Greenpeace plant?


6 posted on 07/29/2010 8:49:02 PM PDT by packrat35 (Planned Parenthood... killing more blacks than the Ku Klux Klan could have ever dreamed of.)
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To: packrat35
Funny stuff. It would be nice if you could address my statement.
Skimmers can't skim in three dimensions.
7 posted on 07/29/2010 9:00:24 PM PDT by allmost
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To: allmost

Three dimensions-what do you think this is? Star Trek?

Oil floats and chemicals break down in water. In salt water even more so. In really large bodies of water-EVEN MORE SO!


8 posted on 07/29/2010 9:33:04 PM PDT by packrat35 (Planned Parenthood... killing more blacks than the Ku Klux Klan could have ever dreamed of.)
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To: packrat35
Oil floats unless dispersants are used.
9 posted on 07/29/2010 9:36:27 PM PDT by allmost
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Seen it ? Got a video on it. Knew it was unusual. The video is up now and here is its description. Will go read the Oil Drum thread some more now.

July 29th 2010 00:58 pst. Various ROV feeds during a sonar scan anomaly. Sonar anomaly was on Q4000 ROV 1. Video starts with anomaly then the ROV goes into visual mode. Then the ROV moves slightly. Then I played around with windows a little and ended up back on the Q4000 ROV 1 sonar again. Then the ROV goes back into visual. Then the ROV moves to the left heading towards some panel. BP ROV video feeds released to the public.

Sonar Anomaly on Q4000 ROV 1

10 posted on 07/29/2010 9:40:04 PM PDT by justa-hairyape
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

I like the way that BP is still running ads proclaiming that they are sending out planes and such every morning to search for oil and yet, articles continue to be near-daily made that assert that the cleanup crews can’t find no oil...... =.=


11 posted on 07/29/2010 10:02:24 PM PDT by cranked
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To: justa-hairyape
In the above Q4000 sonar/visual video you can see the left edge of a strange assembly in the upper right corner. The platform of that device is slightly similar to the platform of a device that was dropped down on Sunday. At first it looked like the cone of a missile with a flat top. But then I assumed it was a large pump. A video of the device when they lowered it is below. In the sonar anomaly video feed above, you can first see it in the upper right at the 22 second mark. At least you see the left side of the platform. The pump seems to be obscured by a smoker. The device is again visible in the above video at the 2:54 mark in the upper right corner when the darn thing is glowing very bright. Could the device below be what caused the sonar anomaly ? What is the device below ? It was also seen by a Q4000 ROV.

Strange Device on a Platform

12 posted on 07/29/2010 10:21:57 PM PDT by justa-hairyape
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
I have a feeling nothing abnormal has occurred.
They are in the process of moving a lot of equipment around, lowering new pumps etc., cleaning out the RW drill bore for cementing etc., dragging pipes and other stuff around about the sea floor.
One could go nuts trying to figure out what is happening in any given ROV cam shot. The plumes if you want to call them that displayed in say the Deep Boa shots may simply be all the stuff they are cleaning out of the well bore that is now is circulating in the lower sea floor currents.
It may look like something is going wrong when it is simply the result of a maintenance activity.

13 posted on 07/30/2010 1:02:57 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned....)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
So what does it really mean. I for one plead ignorance as to how to interpret those radar scans relative to what should be seen assuming no external above sea bed activity is taking place, e.g. ROVs moving things about the sea floor bed proximate to the area of scans for instance.
One could assume if anything bad is happening it would show up on a consistent basis.
But thanks for the heads up.
14 posted on 07/30/2010 1:13:55 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned....)
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To: justa-hairyape
Whoops. Sorry. I meant to address your ping to me.
So what does it really mean. I for one plead ignorance as to how to interpret those radar scans relative to what should be seen assuming no external above sea bed activity is taking place, e.g. ROVs moving things about the sea floor bed proximate to the area of scans for instance. One could assume if anything bad is happening it would show up on a consistent basis. But thanks for the heads up.
15 posted on 07/30/2010 1:16:21 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned....)
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To: Marine_Uncle
One could assume if anything bad is happening it would show up on a consistent basis.

Good points, but if they are trying to hide something, we may only see it once. Letting us see it a second time, may be a mistake on their part, assuming they are covering up bad news. I now believe that the pulling of the long pipe and the sonar anomaly are related somehow. One occurred right after the other. Just do not know exactly how they are related yet. Got some ideas, but they get too conspiratorial. Need something more substantial. Sure would like to know what that device on the platform actually is.

16 posted on 07/30/2010 4:13:26 PM PDT by justa-hairyape
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To: justa-hairyape
I appreciate your comments. BP as well as the Feds could be hiding all kinds of stuff. But I do think a lot of the debris and clouded waters we have seen over the past week plus is due to lots of sea floor activities. However there is no way to discount those huge clathrate balls we had been seeing. Thought they seemed to have slowed down quite a bit, or they simply are not pointing the cams to where they had been emitting from.
I do think they are on the level as to changes in what kill process would come first. The scientist/engineers most likely make adjustments as they review what is actually happening at this site.
I can't see anyone wanting to foul up at this point.
Hopefully the worst is now behind us. Time will tell.
But in any event. It sure taint helping all those that find them selves out of work and have not yet been able to receive claims money. And or those that will find themselves out of work in fields relating to the deep and shallow well drilling companies etc..
Will the now opening of the fisheries across the GOM help salvage some of the fishermen and stores of all sorts that deal in sea foods. Hopefully so.
Will we see a rejuvenated marsh system next year. Perhaps so. I don't think it was quite as bad as what the MSM concentrated on. But that is no excuse for this disaster to have ever happened in the first place.
Let us hope the whole industry takes note and is given another chance to tighten up and do things in the best environmentally and human safe way.
Time will tell on that one.
17 posted on 07/30/2010 5:24:38 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned....)
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To: Marine_Uncle

The large Clathrates seem to have been ejected primarily in the area North West of the BOP. Saw those when they did sonar scans in that area. Also some North East of the BOP where the wreckage from the Deep Horizon rig seems to be located. They have been staying away form those areas. What we see near the BOP now are tiny clathrates, probably what remains of larger clathrates that have dissolved. They definitely are doing a lot of work near the BOP now so perhaps they need to stay close. At any rate, water clarity has seriously degraded. Granted could be due to the recent uptick in activity, but the degradation has been steady since they Shut In the well. Almost looks like night done there with spot lights, when in the past any light at all would illuminate vast areas for view.


18 posted on 07/30/2010 6:17:15 PM PDT by justa-hairyape
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To: justa-hairyape
Agree with all your observations. Been looking at the multiviews for the past half hour. Looks like they are either allowing a line to be purged, or spraying from a hose onto what I think is the BOP stack assembly.
Hopefully something has not sprung a leak. HOS 1 squidly in question. Approx time: 10:50PM EST.
19 posted on 07/30/2010 7:55:19 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned....)
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To: Marine_Uncle
Yep. Looks like they were clearing a line with a green liquid. Shot out quite a bit.

Right now, if you read the latest article on The Oil Drum, they may be concerned about the seals at the top of the actual well head. There has been an ROV at the well head for over a day now. Saw the video feed for one ROV down there for a few minutes. They are sampling the gas leaking. The leaks down there seem to be increasing. The seals down there could blow out during the Top Kill according to the Oil Drum article. These are the seals at the top of the diagram below.


20 posted on 07/30/2010 10:22:28 PM PDT by justa-hairyape
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